What’s not to like about a flowery home? Apparently, my fanflower hanging baskets make the perfect dwelling.
They have many benefits for this Carolina anole.
Little anole, you chose a great spot.
Somebody else is taking care of the landscaping- watering, feeding, pruning.
You can just enjoy the beauty that surrounds you.
Your dinner is brought to you, attracted by all the beautiful blooms.
Living in a hanging basket has its perks, for sure.
Anybody else a bit jealous?
Peaches and summer just go together. When I canned peach slices, I kept the syrup for making this tea, but you can make your own without canning.
To make 2 pints of peach syrup you will need: 4 cups water, 2.5 cups sugar, and 5 very ripe diced peaches.
Put all ingredients in heavy pot and simmer for 20 minutes, squishing the peaches to remove juice.
At this point you could cool and strain it, but I let mine cool, then set overnight in the fridge.
I simmered it again (can you tell I wanted a really peachy syrup?), strained it, then put it in the fridge.
Don’t toss the strained peach bits, you can stir them into plain yogurt or add them to a smoothie.
To make a really good peach tea, add this syrup to unsweeted tea. I like a 1:4 ratio of syrup to tea.
I suppose I could get really fancy and freeze it as cubes.
Any other ideas? Do you like the idea of peach tea or are you a purist? Or are you maybe completely confused because “tea” is only a hot beverage to you?
It is a jungle out there. I really don’t want to share pictures of what my garden looks like now.
How about you just look at these pretty peas?
Or the nice striping on this eggplant?
I have two teeny tiny jalepeno plants, approximately a foot tall each, and they have been pumping out the peppers. I just got a dozen from them.
Just keep scrolling past the garden pictures…
The okra is doing great, as is the basil. The orange and yellow cosmos are real winners over here.
Jungle!! AHH!!
The cover crops that I planted are chugging along, though, even the 75 cent pinto beans.
Going to let a few ‘Clemson Spineless’ okra pods ripen so I can save some okra seeds for next year.
I planted probably double the amount as last year, and I still wish I had planted more.
The yard long beans are growing up the fence with amazing vigor. They twine like pole beans, but aren’t complaining about the netting. They show no signs of slowing, and seem as though they would grow 50 feet tall if I had a trellis high enough.
My neighbors probably already think I’m weird enough, better not.
Picked and shelled some Southern peas. I think I’ll grow more ‘Mississippi Silver’ next year; they seem to be larger and pack the pod pretty tight. More meat for your shelling time.
My to-do list for August:
1. Get seeds started for fall garden. Kale, collards, Swiss chard, cauliflower, kohlrabi,and broccoli will go in flats so they can be planted out in September.
2. Till under cover crops in large garden toward end of month.
3. Pull up green beans from shed bed and replace with zucchini and yellow squash. In August, we can essentially replant a spring garden here in North Florida, and September starts the official fall garden planting for me. If you want an almost complete guide to the vegetables you can grow in Florida, a really good planting calender can be found here.
4. Try not to get stressed out by how terrible the garden looks now. July and August tend to be pretty tough. Maybe next year I’ll just smother the whole thing with grocery store beans the first of July and pretend it doesn’t exist until the middle of August. 🙂
How’s your garden? For some of you, this is the time to make me jealous!
It is quite disconcerting to open a jar of your homemade preserves, only to find nastified rust and junk under the lid.
Acidic foods have a way of destroying lids and make you wonder about the contents of your jar.
Recently, I was opening a jar of homemade something or other from the fridge and saw the nastiness.
Then I noticed some Classico pasta sauce lids that I had been saving. They have a nice waterproof coating in the interior and they fit my regular mouth canning jars!
No more gross stuff at the top of the jars!
I shared this (new to me information) with a friend of mine, who then informed me that mayo jar lids fit too. Now I’m going to be saving those too. These reused lids don’t look as nice as the canning lids, but the results are certainly much better.
Please note: I do not use these lids for the actual canning process, I only use these after canned goods are opened for use.
Do you know of any other lids that fit regular mouth canning jars? What about lids for wide mouth canning jars? I’d love to hear what you do to prevent nasty canning lids !
When I knew I would be getting 75 pounds of peaches, I had a list of ideas for what to do with them.
1. Eat fresh. I love eating fresh fruit in season.
2. Make PEACH JAM!!
3. Can peach pie filling.
4. Can peach slices.
5. Make peach butter.
6. Can peach blueberry jam.
7. Try making peach syrup for peach sweet tea??
Let’s talk about canning peaches, shall we?
Start with peeled peach slices.
Simmer them in a medium syrup until hot. I used the recommended 3 cups sugar to 5 cups water from the Ball book.
I used the hot pack method because I felt that the brief heating/cooking time would allow me to fit more in the jars and lessen the amount that would float to the top.
Pack them into pint jars, and fill with syrup, leaving about 1/2″ head space.
Process in boiling water canner for 20 minutes.
These will be nice to have later, once the boxes of peaches on my kitchen table are a distant memory.
How do you like your peach slices? Chilled? Over cottage cheese? Fruit salad?
Don’t throw away the syrup either, as you can use it to make peach sweet tea. I also made some peach syrup specifically for tea using the leftover syrup from canning. Recipe soon!
Swimming in tomatoes? Here’s a great way to use up a glut of tomatoes and have a flavorful addition to many meals.
Start with a bowl full of fresh tomatoes.
Wash, slice them in half, and place them on a cookie sheet, skin side down.
Add onions, peppers, and garlic if desired. All three vegetables are versatile and can be used in a tomato base for either Italian or Mexican dishes.
Roast at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, or until cooked through.
If you want to remove the skins, now it is easy to remove the larger pieces, but I don’t bother.
Process in food processor until smooth. If you like a chunky sauce, process in short bursts.
I put mine in quart freezer bags and froze it.
What an easy addition to Crock-Pot chili or spaghetti sauce!
Truly good peaches must be eaten over the sink, juice dripping off your hands, down your arms, and plinking gently into the sink. Wouldn’t it be nice if peaches were in season all year long?
I have been steadily working my way through 75 pounds of peaches; the peach jam has been great, the blueberry peach jam has been great, but I have really been enjoying my spiced peach pie filling. Since really good peaches won’t be available in the blustery cold evenings of January, I made some pie filling out of them. Actually, I see many easy cobblers in my future. Yum!
Here is what you need: 14 cups of peeled sliced peaches, juice of 2 lemons, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon, 1/4 cup white vinegar, 2 2/3 cup sugar. This will yield about 5 pints.
Combine all ingredients in heavy stock pot and cook over medium-high heat until the juice has slightly thickened. For me, this took about 25 minutes.
At this point, you can either freeze it, or can it in pint jars in boiling water bath for 15 minutes. This recipe yields wonderfully soft, sweet , spiced peaches. If you prefer only mildly spiced peaches, use only the nutmeg.
My yield was slightly over 5 pints. So, what to do with the little bit of extra?
I poured some over vanilla ice cream and sprinkled pecans over it. Delicious! I did try making some peach syrup for sweetening iced tea, and it turned out really good! I’ll share that recipe/process in a later post, as well as how to can sliced peaches. If you hate peaches I’m sorry, but they have been my life recently.
I’m not sick of them yet, and I have enough in my fridge to either eat fresh for a while, or to make some spiced peach butter and eat fresh for just a little while.
Decisions decisions. What should I do?
I’m finally staring at the bottom of my last box of peaches.
So far I have made peach jam, blueberry peach jam, and peach pie filling. On the to-do list for today is plain canned peaches, more delicious peach jam, and freezing those peaches in need of emergency attention. If I still have some left, I hope to make some syrup for sweetening iced tea, and maybe a batch of spiced peach butter. I’ve already posted recipes for the peach jam and the blueberry peach jam, but I plan on posting a recipe for the peach pie filling soon; it’s really tasty! Also, I’ll let you know how the peach syrup turns out. If it turns out as good as it sounds in my head, it should be a really really good summer beverage.
What would you do with 75 pounds of peaches? Did I miss one of your favorite recipes? Let me know!
Oh, and I have my first ever video in the works! Stay tuned!
UPDATE: These are indeed muscadine grapes. I have been harvesting and eating them. Yummy!
I noticed these grape-like vines growing above my garden. I guess I have never tasted a purple one before, maybe in years past I have just sampled them at the green stage?
The fruit grows in clusters of just a few at a time.
Picture of the vines and leaves.
Everything I’ve read seems to support the muscadine grape theory. I took a little taste of one, and it seemed sweet.
Can anyone confirm? I picked almost a pint the other day, and I’d like to know if they are surely edible or if I will surely die.
Right now I have a few summer crops growing: okra, basil, yard long beans, eggplant, pink-eyed purple- hulled peas, and cherry tomatoes. However, my soil is in desperate need of replenishing, so I decided to plant the bare spots with nitrogen-fixing legumes.
I found this bag of pinto beans at the grocery store and decided to plant them as a cover crop.
I’ve already got some popping up! Hopefully they will fix nitrogen in the soil, shade out summer weeds, and provide good organic matter for the soil. The plan is for them to be tilled under around the beginning of September, then to let them set and compost in place for a few weeks, then to plant my fall garden. Growing beans from the grocery store – what an inexpensive way to plant a cover crop!
Coffee to Compost 